Story Skating
    
One, two, three. Right turn, drag the left skate . . .

“Megan, that’s not a dog!” I look at the stands to see my best friend, Sarah, laughing. “You carved a turtle!”

I smile and skate over to the side of my parents’ ice skating rink to survey my carvings. Sarah’s right. It doesn’t look at all like the story I’m trying to tell. That’s the thing with story skating. You’re never sure if the carving looks right to the people in the stands.
    
Story skating is a sport I made up with Sarah a few years ago. Every winter, we practice carving illustrations and telling a story through the lines that our ice skates etch onto the ice. It’s a lot harder than it looks, though. Story skating is even harder than figure skating, because you have to do tricks on the ice while you’re carving illustrations!
    
“Listen,” Sarah says. She has skated onto the ice and pulls me toward my latest carving. Sarah stops right next to it and starts carving a Labradoodle into the ice. “See, you have to think about how sharp the turns are, the lutz, the angle of the double axel . . .”
    
I smirk. Basically, I have to think about everything?” I clarify.
    
“Yeah,” agrees Sarah. “And don’t even get me started on the ink!”
    
At first, Sarah and I didn’t put anything on our blades when we were story skating, but we quickly realized that the carvings weren’t visible from the stands. So, we started putting ink on our skates before we went on the ice. The ink stands out against the ice and defines the lines of our illustrations. The ink smears, though, and it can stain the ice. Overall, let’s just say it’s a good thing my parents own this rink!
    
Sarah and I practice our story skating for another hour then call our parents. We invite them to watch our story skating performance, and they jump at the chance. A few minutes later, our parents are clapping and cheering as Sarah and I story skate across the ice, telling stories as we go along.